GREAT FALLS, Mont. — About a year after Gene Watson began his tenure as a massage instructor at the Montana Academy of Salons in central Montana, a woman who was a student there said he sexually assaulted her in front of a class of peers.

During a practice massage from another student enrolled in the massage therapy program in 2013, she alleges Watson entered the room and assaulted her under the guise of making an educational point.

“I was laying on the table and he abruptly came in and said, ‘Hey, do you want to know where a lot of clients hold some tension?’ And he basically shoved his fingers up the sheets and in between my butt and he basically touched as close to my anus as he possibly could without actually touching or penetrating,” she said. “And then he was basically like, ‘Whelp, that’s it,’ and he left.”

She agreed to speak with the Tribune on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Watson and the school.

This student said there were repercussions for not putting up with Watson’s advances. If students tried to avoid him, rebuked his advances or didn’t give him enough attention, Watson would punish them.

“He was the type of personality that if he got rejected or showed any sort of discomfort, he would literally throw a fit and then our education would suffer,” she said. “He would make us go do petty cleanup things...Our education depended on his mood. If he was in a bad mood, we wouldn’t learn anything. If he was in a good mood, we would learn things, but we would also have to watch out for our own well-being.”

“Our education depended on his mood. If he was in a bad mood, we wouldn’t learn anything. If he was in a good mood, we would learn things but we would also have to watch out for our own wellbeing.”

Former Montana Academy of Salons student

The student said she told MAS owners Mike and Linda McPherson about Watson’s behavior and suggested that if Watson stayed on staff, he should be a classroom-only teacher and not be allowed to teach the hands-on portion of the program.

In response, she remembers Mike told her he had had several talks with Watson about his behavior, but Watson “just doesn’t get it.” As for Linda, the student said she referred to raised allegations as a “witch hunt” by students trying to get money from the school.

She wasn’t the only one who alleges these experiences with Watson and the McPhersons.

Nearly three years later, Amanda Cavallin enrolled in the esthetics program at MAS in February 2016. In 2017, she received a $20,000 settlement in her Human Rights Bureau case against Watson, the McPhersons and MAS for her claims of sexual discrimination and reports of harassment.

According to her complaint, Watson swatted her butt as she walked down the hall, and she turned around and forcefully told him “No.” When Watson reportedly stroked her hair and told her how pretty she looked, Cavallin told him she was uncomfortable and left the room. Then, she said Watson became hostile toward her.

“It got to the point where I didn’t even want to go to school,” Cavallin said. “I was uncomfortable going to school. I dreaded it, in fact. I continued to show up for classes. I didn’t want to get thrown out of school or anything like that. I still did good in my studies, but I dreaded having to go to school because of fear of running into him and being caught alone with him.”

The Tribune has spent the past four months looking into 14 statements filed with state and local agencies, reviewing 53 pages of a court document obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request from the Human Rights Bureau and speaking with several more former students, teachers and clients about their reports of sexual harassment, discrimination and assault committed by Watson.

Their accounts illuminated an untold story about the predatory pattern of sexual abuse and the people and systems that reportedly allowed it to go on in Great Falls for nearly five years before the McPhersons eventually terminated his employment at the academy in July 2016.

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In reviewing investigative materials from five different agencies, the Tribune discovered the case against Watson slipped through the cracks, leaving a near two-and-a-half-year window in which he allegedly harassed and assaulted at least 14 students at Montana Academy of Salons. The Tribune also found the state board that oversees massage licenses is currently gearing up for steps to potentially revoke his license in two different cases.

Of those associated with the academy who spoke with the Tribune and enforcement agencies, nine specifically accused the McPhersons of using denial, intimidation and bribery to prevent further accusations from coming forward as well as covering up Watson’s actions.

The McPhersons declined to answer questions in a phone interview, but agreed to address the situation in a written statement.

"While denying these allegations, Montana Academy worked with the charging parties and the Bureau to enter into conciliation agreements wherein Montana Academy reaffirmed its commitment to prevent discrimination of any kind and to prohibit retaliation against those who file a complaint or third-party report, or otherwise participate in the investigative and/or disciplinary process," the McPhersons said in the statement.

Throughout the investigative process, the McPhersons did not make any legal objections to block the Tribune from obtaining Human Rights Bureau documents.

In Cavallin's settled 2017 Human Rights Bureau complaint against Watson, the McPhersons and the Montana Academy of Salons, investigators found Cavallin and her witnesses to be credible and also found reasonable cause against all accused parties.

Stephanie Chaney, then 26, was a missileer stationed at Malmstrom. She said she had some recurring issues with the muscles in her hips that made her a frequent massage client. Chaney knew how it was supposed to go when she scheduled her first appointment with Watson at his contracted office in the Malmstrom fitness center.

Chaney said she knew things with Watson were off when, without asking, he pulled her underwear down to her thighs as she laid on his table.

Then he had her flip over onto her back.

“Breasts on women are nothing but bags of fat to me, I don’t see them in that way,” Watson told Chaney, according to the report she later made to Malmstrom investigators, which the Tribune obtained from the Cascade County Attorney's Office. Then, he ran his hands over her breasts and left the room. There was no massage pressure and no viable excuse to touch her in the way he did, she said.

“I kind of just laid there for a second and was trying to figure out what had just happened,” Chaney told the Tribune.

She dressed, grabbed her things and left. Later, she said he texted her asking if she’d like to schedule another appointment. She didn’t respond. Instead, she filed a report with the Office of Special Investigation.

Sarah Raines was a client of Watson’s on the base for about 10 months before she stopped seeing him. She was dealing with stress in her personal life and started scheduling relaxation massages with him to help. He was the first massage therapist she had ever visited, so she didn’t have a reference for what was OK and what wasn’t.

Raines said Watson started with small gifts: tickets to a game, leftover massage lotion, free samples. Then, he started making small comments: a yoga video he did and how the woman in it was “hot”, noting that not all his clients were as young or attractive as Raines, she said. Then he stopped asking if she would like her glutes massaged and started pulling down her underwear without permission, Raines wrote in a statement to Air Force investigators.

“It’s kind of like each of these things as an individual item seems maybe a little bit weird, maybe innocuous,” Raines said. “But the combination makes me feel like I was being groomed for him to be inappropriate, and he was going to keep pushing until I found a way to avoid him, which I’m fortunate that that was very easy for me to do.”

At her final appointment with Watson, around late May to early June 2014, Raines said the massage had finished and she was laying on her back under the sheet. Before Watson left the room, she said he slipped his hand under the sheet and between her breasts. Then he pulled it back out and left the room.

It wasn’t until later, after a few sessions with a different massage therapist, that Raines said she was able to see more clearly how inappropriate and predatory Watson was during her appointments with him.

“It made me feel more and more disgusted and violated because even if (Watson) had taken several months to start pushing the boundaries to see what I would let him get away with, it affected me more and more to know that was his intention from the moment I walked in,” Raines said.

Both Raines and Chaney said they felt unnerved by their experiences in Watson’s private massage room. Chaney called her cousin, a massage therapist, who confirmed that none of what happened could have been accidental.

“I did mull it over a couple of days,” Chaney said. “I went through that internal struggle of: Well I can just move on and be fine, but if this is happening to other people, then I can’t just sit by and let it happen.”

Chaney ultimately decided to reach out to a victim’s advocate in her squadron.

The Office of Special Investigation looked into Watson’s conduct after Chaney’s report. They delivered her statement to the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office on June 8, 2014, opening the potential for criminal charges.

The OSI canvassed Watson’s other clients and received statements from Raines and a third woman who made a similar claim about Watson inappropriately exposing and touching her breasts during her massage. These new reports also were forwarded to the sheriff’s office.

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Raines said she hadn’t told anyone what happened to her until she was contacted by the Air Force investigators. She was spurred into action when she realized she wasn’t the only one.

“This has made me more understanding of people, of women especially, who are victimized and don’t want to deal with it by making a report,” Raines said. “Even though I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to be honest and protect future victims, I don’t think it’s fair for me to put that responsibility on everybody who is hurt. It has made me more patient and more understanding of people dealing with it in different ways that are more about their self-preservation.”

Watson’s contract to practice massage on Malmstrom expired on June 30, 2014. Aside from not renewing the contract, the base took no disciplinary action against him. The military does not have criminal jurisdiction over civilians, including contractors and civilian employees.

Watson told the Tribune in a phone conversation early this week that leaving the base was a mutual decision. He denied wrong-doing and deferred other questions to his attorney, including where he is now living.

Watson was able to continue teaching massage therapy at MAS. Any chance of prosecution was in the hands of the Cascade County Attorney’s Office.

“At the time, I felt good that we got him off base, that he wasn’t practicing in my safe space anymore,” Chaney said. “But hindsight's 20/20. He was obviously still in a situation to be taking advantage of people. I wish that I would have done more, but I’m glad that I spoke up at all.”

Michael Eayrs, former director of the Montana Institute of Massage Therapy and once the chairman of the Montana Board of Massage Therapy, which opened satellite schools in Billings and Great Falls, still remembers Watson’s time under his instruction.

Eayrs said Watson likely completed a 500- or 600-hour training period before obtaining his license certification, studying anatomy, physiology and kinesiology, the essential understandings of body movement. The training took place at a Great Falls hotel convention space.

There were no instances Eayrs recalls that raised concerns of predatory behavior, but he remembers Watson as “cocky” and “not very teachable.”

“He comes across as braggadocio,” Eayrs said. “That’s my opinion.”

In Montana,and several others states, state officials don’t regulate post-secondary education in the private sector.

“I don’t think Gene was ready to teach,” Eayrs said.

Montana Academy of Salons

On June 11, 2014, the Sheriff’s Office reached out to Mike McPherson to ask if he had received any reports of misconduct by Watson. Mike said Watson had been reprimanded for an inappropriate joke, non-sexual in nature, but he heard no other complaints from students in the last two graduating classes during their exit interviews.

Though some students didn’t speak up, there were claims of Watson’s sexual assault and sexual harassment that were brought directly to Mike and Linda.

Allegations of Watson’s abuse can be traced back to his first semester at MAS when he was hired to relaunch the massage therapy program in July 2012.

A massage student who studied with Watson in his first semester teaching said he inappropriately touched her breast while demonstrating a massage on her in class. She never spoke up and wished to remain anonymous because she’s still concerned about the McPhersons retaliating against her.

“He knew what he had done,” she said. “I just wanted out. I didn’t want to be told nothing will happen. I just wanted to leave it alone. I finished out (the course) and was done. I won’t go back there again.”

Even then, she said, her classmates had their own stories about Watson. She said they opted to keep quiet and advised her to do the same.

The Montana Academy of Salons and owner Linda McPherson and her husband, Mike, are accused in a Human Rights Bureau complaint of covering up for former instructor Gene Watson.(Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS)

Former students told the Tribune that Watson would slap students’ butts, snap their bra straps, touch their breasts during practice massages, make lewd jokes, comment on their weight and appearance, give unwanted shoulder rubs and kiss his students on their necks.

One student said Watson would poke his head into the massage room while students practiced on each other and in a low, suggestive voice say, “Oh yeah.” One said Watson would tell students he knew where to hide a body on base if they ever needed to get rid of a boyfriend that they didn’t like. Another said her education was frequently interrupted when Watson was pulled out of class by the McPhersons for meetings about his conduct.

Many former students told the Tribune and reported in declarations for Cavallin’s Human Rights Bureau case that they worried about going to the McPhersons because they thought it might jeopardize their ability to graduate and obtain future employment in the industry. In Human Rights Bureau records reviewed by the Tribune, one student said Linda forced her class to sign a “no gossip” policy and threatened them with expulsion if they were caught talking about Watson sexually harassing students.

Crossed wires between agencies

On Sept. 23, 2014, Air Force investigators contacted Watson to question him about his conduct with Chaney, Raines and the other Malmstrom victim. They interviewed him again in October. During both sessions, Watson denied the allegations and repeatedly spoke about the anatomy of skeletal muscle instead of directly addressing the victims’ claims, according to investigators’ reports.

The reports say Watson laughed off several of the claims and denied any inappropriate conduct. He advised the investigators that he would take what he learned during the investigation and implement better practices moving forward.

On Dec. 26, 2014, the OSI delivered its investigation materials to the Montana Board of Massage.

With the Malmstrom investigation wrapped and handed over, the sheriff’s office’s criminal investigation ongoing and the Board of Massage’s proceedings just beginning, it would seem like a great reckoning was coming for Watson.

But in the crossed wires of the administrative process, Watson slipped through the cracks.

In a letter to the Cascade County Attorney's Office, the Board of Massage said it would put its own investigation on hold while the criminal case moved ahead so as not to complicate anything with simultaneous investigations. However, there was a misunderstanding between the two agencies.

County officials misinterpreted the Board of Massage’s decision and believed the board couldn’t come to a consensus and tabled the case. Blue Corneliusen, a detective with Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, thought the board was deferring its responsibility to act until the sheriff’s office acted.

“If the board wasn’t going to do anything, how could we do anything?” Corneliusen said. “If the board would’ve went through and said this is totally inappropriate and could’ve articulated that, we certainly would’ve looked at pursuing that.”

The board only had to determine there was a preponderance of evidence to move forward with an administrative trial against Watson. The preponderance of evidence is a lower burden of proof hurdle than the criminal requirement to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. At this level, the evidence needs to appear truthful and convincing to move forward.

“It’s two different sets of hurdles of proof,” Corneliusen said. “Preponderance of evidence is about 55 percent versus reasonable doubt, which is 98 to 99 percent.”

Moving forward with the belief that the board didn’t want to take Watson to trial and with Mike’s denial of any complaints against Watson at MAS, Corneliusen reviewed the OSI’s materials. He decided to reach out to Michael Eayrs, the former state chairman for licensing, to request his professional review and opinion on the complaints filed by the Malmstrom victims.

Eayers surmised that much of Watson’s reported behavior was “unprofessional, unethical and inappropriate” though some of the claims fell into a gray area that depends on the consent of the client.

On Feb. 25, 2015, Corneliusen reported that he had closed the case, saying “If they as the licensing agency could not find fault in the actions of Watson at the preponderance of evidence level, no action would be appropriate at the criminal level of beyond a reasonable doubt.”

When Corneliusen closed the case, the Board of Massage wasn’t made aware. If it had been informed, it would have set its administrative process back in motion toward an administrative trial to revoke Watson’s massage license, Judy Bovington, chief legal counsel for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, said.

Corneliusen said he wasn’t told the board had requested he let them know when he closed the case. Even if it had, he said it’s not something he would normally do because law enforcement agencies can’t share criminal justice information without a judge’s order.

“Working with other agencies within the parameter that we can give them information, we will,” Corneliusen said. “But because of the potential nature of criminal justice information, it isn’t like we can hand them our report.”

“From the time the sheriff’s office investigation closed the case to the time the Board of Massage became aware that the investigation was closed two years later in 2017, Watson allegedly assaulted or harassed no fewer than 13 women and one man at the Academy.”

Tribune investigation

Watson had escaped criminal proceedings. The Board of Massage case to get his license revoked was pushed aside, waiting for news from the sheriff’s office that would never come.

From the time the sheriff’s office investigation closed the case to the time the Board of Massage became aware that the investigation was closed two years later in 2017, Watson allegedly assaulted or harassed no fewer than 13 women and one man at the Academy, according to records included in the Human Rights Bureau cases against Watson, the McPhersons and MAS.

Watson continued to teach at MAS until July 2, 2016, with allegations continuing to emerge until his final weeks at the academy.

Calling on the Human Rights Bureau

In June 2016, four months into Amanda Cavallin’s enrollment at MAS, she had a sit-down meeting with Linda to talk about the sexual assault and harassment she and her classmates were allegedly experiencing from Watson.

“There was a gal that I was close to at the school that I had told about how I felt and what he was doing to me and how I was uncomfortable with it,” Cavallin said. “As her and I started to have more conversations about it — we typically had those conversations in private, but then when we started to have those conversations more in the classroom — then a couple other girls then said, 'You know he’s been doing that to me also.' That just kind of started to spiral. More girls started to hear about it and were saying, 'Yes, he was doing this to me too.' It was bigger than what we had imagined.”

Watson was suspended from teaching at MAS in September 2015 while the McPhersons investigated what they called “a few benign and innocuous complaints about Mr. Watson’s conduct,” according to Human Rights Bureau documents.

The investigation was the result of another student who alleged Watson had sexually assaulted her, Linda later admitted, according to Cavallin.

“More girls started to hear about it and were saying, 'Yes, he was doing this to me too.' It was bigger than what we had imagined.”

Amanda Cavallin, former Montana Academy of Salons student

Watson was reinstated two weeks later under threat of dismissal if he continued acting inappropriately, according to the Human Rights Bureau documents.

Around mid-June 2016, Cavallin and a few other students were in a meeting with the McPhersons and decided to take the opportunity to tell them about their uncomfortable experiences with Watson. Cavallin said Linda asked them to each submit written statements.

Cavallin said she was apprehensive to hand over her statement without a backup copy somewhere out of reach of the school, so she provided a copy to attorney Anders Blewett of Hoyt & Blewett, PLLC.

On June 23, 2016, she met with Linda and handed over another copy of her statement.

“I told her what he had done to myself and what he had done to the two other females, and then I asked her specifically about the other female prior to us that had come forward and said he had sexually assaulted her,” Cavallin said. “At first she said, ‘No, we never knew that he was like this. This is the first time this is being brought to our attention.’”

Cavallin said she kept pushing and eventually Linda said she remembered: “There was a female that came forward and said that he had kissed her on the head and was kissing her on the cheek and stuff, forcing himself on her in the linen closet, or in the laundry room.”

Cavallin said Watson was made aware of the things she said about him. In response, he allegedly told Linda it was Cavallin’s word against his.

Cavallin graduated from MAS in early July 2016. Later that month, she filed her formal complaint against Watson, the McPhersons and MAS with the Montana Human Rights Bureau with Blewett as her attorney. In her complaint, she cited the time Watson tried to slap her butt, stroked her hair and the numerous occasions Watson made her uncomfortable with comments about her appearance.

Blewett compiled declarations from 10 women and one man from MAS to support Cavallin’s case. The incidents described in their declarations, signed “under penalty of perjury and under the laws of the state of Montana that the foregoing is true and correct,” range from belittlement and harassment to sexual assault, unwanted sexual text messages and exposing his pubic hair and genitals to students “to show a scar from surgery.” Eight of the declarations indicate the victims had explicitly talked with the McPhersons about Watson’s conduct.

“I was just completely blown away by how many students were affected by this and that the McPhersons knew about it and failed to do anything,” Cavallin said. “I would just want to know, was it really worth it? Protecting someone like that knowing he had affected so many other women. Was it worth it?”

During later interviews with Human Rights Bureau investigators, Watson admitted to several of Cavallin’s claims. According to the final investigative report, Watson said “We high-five a lot, all the students ... you know, up high go low ... I must have missed her hand and touched her.” Watson also told investigators he did tell Cavallin she was “good looking,” “hot” and “sexy.”

On Jan. 18, 2017, the Human Rights Bureau ruled that there was reasonable cause for discrimination in Cavallin’s case.

“The people that basically foster that type of environment are, in my opinion, just as guilty as the perpetrator.”

Amanda Cavallin, former Montana Academy of Salons student

In late 2017, the McPhersons settled with Cavallin privately for $20,000 and the Human Rights Bureau dismissed the case after reaching an agreed-upon list of stipulations to prevent such predatory behavior in the future — or at least keep the McPhersons and their staff members from perpetuating it again. If the academy fails to complete those stipulations, the Human Rights Bureau can sue for non-compliance.

“The people that basically foster that type of environment are, in my opinion, just as guilty as the perpetrator,” Cavallin said.

Watson was not required to pay any of the settlement. Instead, it was covered by the McPherson’s insurance company.

“I feel like he got away scot-free,” Cavallin said. “He gets to go on without a care, basically, without having to answer to what he did.”

The aftermath

In October 2017, the Board of Massage finally became aware that the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office had closed its 2014 investigation into Watson’s alleged behavior.

Bovington, the chief legal counsel for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, told the Tribune in January that it will move forward with an administrative trial against Watson based on the allegations stemming from Malmstrom Air Force Base in 2014.

Upon realizing the 2014 investigation had closed, the Board of Massage also learned for the first time of the allegations brought forth from students within the Montana Academy of Salons; Bovington said the board has opened a new investigation into those claims.

If convicted in the administrative process, Watson would no longer be able to practice massage therapy in the state of Montana and other state massage boards would be notified of the revocation of his license if he tried to obtain a license in another state.

While the Board of Massage works to finish its process, there is nothing on Watson’s record to indicate that he has been accused of malpractice, meaning no other state would know of any allegations against him.

“Not that it’s been some big torturous experience, but four years since I had a bad experience with this guy, and still he’s having little to no consequences despite me doing everything right — me reporting, me being honest, me telling the truth. Despite that, he’s had little to no consequence and yet I still get invited to think about it on a fairly regular basis,” Raines said. “What I went through is not as traumatic or as dramatic as what other people are going through and yet we put the onus on the victim to fix it. It has made me more understanding of people, of women especially, who are victimized and don’t want to deal with it by making a report. Even though I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to be honest and protect future victims, I don’t think it’s fair for me to put that responsibility on everybody who is hurt.

“But it has also made me, since I’m kind of a tough cookie, more willing to put myself out there and be honest about it and less patient with people who don’t believe the victim or who cry ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ It’s all well and good, but the cost of making a report is so great that it’s silly to me to bring the same level of doubt to victims and reserve that benefit of the doubt for predators. I think all of these small nuances of women are accommodating, women tend to want to be polite, women don’t like confrontation, they’re unsure if it’s happening or if it’s in their heads or if it’s intentional and then the difficulty of reporting, the difficulty of proving things — all of those things work in the favor of the predator and they know that, and that’s how they get away with it for a long time. It’s not just a misunderstanding, it’s a pattern.”

- This story has been updated to include the date of Watson's termination from the Montana Academy of Salons.